Lunar New Year Celebration

This weekend we spent some family time celebrating Lunar New Year, which fell on Thursday February 19. It's a holiday celebrated in China as well as Japan, Mongolia, Korea, Tibet and Vietnam. In most of these countries the celebration starts about five days before the holiday and goes for a whole week after New Year's Day. One of the things we talked about when we adopted Davis was finding ways to incorporate his Chinese heritage into our family life. Celebrating holidays like this is one way we keep that heritage alive. Our Families with Children from China group met today for their New Year Celebration and we invited Uncle Nam and Uncle Kelly to come up and share the experience with us. They came to Ocala Saturday evening and toured town a bit before we all headed to dinner at Mojo's. 

Then today Kelly and Nam went with Daryl to worship at Druid Hills before meeting the rest of us back at the house. The five of us had been practicing a surprise for Uncle Nam - learning how to say Happy New Year in Vietnamese: "Chuc Mung Nam Moi!" After saying their special phrase, the boys were happy to receive these traditional red envelopes from their uncles with money inside.  

There were more New Year's presents for the boys as well - plenty of special sweet treats to go around. 

Our FCC celebration took place this afternoon at Chop Stix Cafe in Gainesville, a great little restaurant with all kinds of different Asian foods on the menu. They're normally closed on Sundays and opened up just for our group's celebration. 

Davis' name was added to the map this year for birthplaces of all the kids in the adoption group. 

The big craft today was fancy decorated zipper pulls for backpacks. The boys had fun making them. 

There was time for traditional music and dancing and the dragon parade. 

These two guys had different Vietnamese soups for lunch. Uncle Nam had Hu Tieu Nam Vang (noodle soup with chicken pork and shrimp) and Davis had Pho (pronounced Fuh) with meatballs. 

I tried something completely new and loved it - Pad Thai with Pork. 

Daryl and Parker both got General Tso's Chicken. 

Dessert was these super cute cupcakes - It's the Year of the Sheep (or Goat or Ram depending on who you talk to!) 

And afterwards, we went outside for fireworks - this was a huge string of firecrackers ties together! 

Some family pictures rounded out our time together. 

Crazy uncles are lots of fun. 

Wesley was given several of the extra craft bags and made a whole set of the backpack pulls. 

We're so glad that Uncle Kelly and Uncle Nam made the time to come up and celebrate the Lunar New Year with us this weekend. It made our celebration that much more special.